Graham Nash

Encore

“I wrote that for David Crosby. Basically the song is about, “Who are you? Who are you when you’re not famous? Who are you when the lights have gone out and the audience has left? Who are you? Are you a decent person or are you a fucking asshole? Who are you?” That’s what Encore is about. [Nash was extremely angry during the interview and accused Crosby of destroying CSNY and CSN. He refused to explain how Crosby had destroyed CSN but did state that Crosby’s negative comments about Young’s new girlfriend, Daryl Hannah, was the start of his destroying CSNY – Ed].”Graham Nash (948)

Prison Song

“I had the first verse about my father who went to jail for a bullshit reason way back in England. He bought a camera from a friend of his at work and used it for amateur photography to take zoo shots – giraffes and all that. The police came to where he worked and said, ‘We know the camera’s been stolen. Who sold it to you?’ My father said, ‘I’m not going to tell you’ and so he went to jail for a year for a $50 camera. Now to a man who is totally straight from the north of England, a man who’s worked hard all of his life to bring up his kids, it killed him. Literally – he died. He couldn’t live with himself, with the fact that maybe the neighbors would be looking at him weird. His honor and dignity would have been broken. What I know now when I see fucking Agnew, who you could buy for $5000, the vice president of the US, and my father fucking died because some bullshit judge tried to make an example of him. That was the first verse and I wrote that four years ago and I couldn’t finish the rest of the song. I had no data or information for the second half until a friend was busted for dope and that gave me the rest of it.”Graham Nash (949)

Better Days

“Stephen and I met Rita Coolidge on the very same night, when we recorded ‘Love the One You’re With’. I fell for Rita, and so did Stephen. I’ve always been a shy person, so I didn’t make the move that I wanted to on Rita. But Stephen did. And they were together for a few months. That line in ‘Better Days’ – “Though you say you’re where you want to be, you’re not where you belong” – was about Rita. I always wanted to be with her. One day I found out from Rita that she also wanted to be with me. And I said, “We have a problem here, because you’re Stephen’s girlfriend right now, and there’s no way we can be together, with a good heart, unless we face Stephen and tell him ourselves.” So we went to Stephen and told him that we wanted to see each other. Stephen wasn’t very happy. Actually, he tried to spit on me. That’s basically what ‘Cowboy Movie’ was about.”Graham Nash (950)

Grave Concern

“You can take a song like ‘Grave Concern,’ that I wrote about Washington during the Watergate hearings.”Graham Nash (951)

Chicago

“This came from complete anger. In 1969, I got a call from a dear friend of ours called Wavy Gravy saying that the people who had been on trial for the Chicago Eight needed funds for their defense, and would CSNY be interested in doing a benefit concert for them. David and I wanted to go, and Neil and Stephen didn’t. So “Chicago” was my song to Neil and Stephen, to say, “Won’t you just come to Chicago just to sing?””Graham Nash (94)

Military Madness

“I was born in Blackpool, England during the end of World War II. I had to write this song because military madness was killing my country literally. I had relatives who would go to work in the morning, and come back and find the entire block gone. Entire families, entire lives, entire existences snuffed out.”Graham Nash (96)

Cold Rain

“I had to do some family business in England and I was standing on the steps of the Midland Hotel. I was standing in a snowstorm, and I was watching people go by. I’m an avid people-watcher. I began to realize that, one, for the grace of God I could still be trundling around Manchester in the freezing miserable weather, and two, that half my friends who didn’t make the leap were still doing that, working like their fathers and grandfathers had, waiting to get that gold watch and lie down and die.”Graham Nash (96)

Try To Find Me

“This song was born as a direct result of playing the very first Bridge concert. Pegi [Young – Ed] runs a school for kids that suffer from cerebral palsy and is doing a magnificent job and we truly love to support the school. And at the very first concert that ever happened, I saw two kids in their wheelchairs, one a little girl who started to cry because she wanted to get out of the concert for whatever reason. This little boy next to her in his wheelchair took an unbelievable amount of time to slowly and painfully move his hand over to hers and squeeze her hand and he made this little girl stop crying. At that moment this song was born.”Graham Nash (101)